The February revolution found Vladimir Lenin in Switzerland and came as a complete surprise to him. Just a month ago, he spoke to Swiss youth and said that the Russian revolution of 1905 awakened both Europe and Asia from sleep, becoming the prologue of the coming European proletarian revolution.

“We, the old people, may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution,

- he declared. "But I can, I think, express with great confidence the hope that young people who work so well in the socialist movement in Switzerland and the whole world, that they will have the happiness not only to fight, but also to win in the coming proletarian revolution."

It was not by chance that Lenin found himself in Switzerland. “After Austrian Poland, from where he managed to take his legs in 1914 by force, there were not many options in Europe - theoretically, it was possible to go to America -” the writer Lev told Gazeta.Ru. - The Central Powers were deliberately excluded as a place of residence, in England and France Lenin would be interned or handed over to Russia for not only anti-war - defeatist agitation.

The choice was, in fact, - Switzerland or Sweden, two neutral countries. But Lenin left Poland, obsessed with the idea of ​​reading Hegel, or rather, re-deciphering Hegel's code (traces of this - the 29th volume of the "Collected Works"), and write a book about imperialism, about the causes of the world war. Sweden was closer to Russia, and there was a Marxist colony there, but Switzerland was better in terms of books, Lenin did not know Swedish, and he was well managed with German. Well, Switzerland also had a promising local socialist party that could be pushed to the left. Switzerland was not at that time a boring country of bankers and watchmakers, there in 1918 a real revolution almost happened, with blood and barricades. "

In Switzerland, Lenin continued to study the works of Karl Marx and other authors, writing out the most important provisions. He titled the notebook that included the notes "Marxism on the State." He also published articles in the local press and edited the work of the Bolshevik and revolutionary Inessa Armand, his confidant.

The news of the revolution that had taken place in his homeland overtook Lenin only on March 2, 1917.

“From the very first minutes, as soon as the news of the February Revolution arrived, Ilyich began to rush to Russia,” his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya recalled.

“The first thing he did when he found out about February in Russia was not to go to church, not to a liquor store, but to the nearest mountain, or a hill by Swiss standards - Zurichberg - and there he spent several hours alone, thinking, what to do, - said Danilkin. - This kind of load has always been very fruitful for him both as a politician and as a philosopher. Well, then he rushed about Switzerland in search of an opportunity to get into Russia - legally, illegally, obviously, conspiratorially, with an English passport, on an airplane, with documents in the name of a deaf-mute Swede, etc.

Then, when I decided to go through Germany, I collected letters of support that could be waved around in Russia - such an informal, but still a travel authorization. And if before that he communicated rather with a close circle of Swiss young socialists, more left-wing than their older, moderate comrades (just one of these young people was Fritz Platten, who took over the intermediary functions in the "sealed carriage"), now he had to mobilize their communication skills and reanimate old contacts - both with the Mensheviks and with the "Vperyodists". And more often than in the cantonal library, he could be seen in the neighboring workers' club "Eintracht", where it was convenient to negotiate. Well, he was composing - voraciously, political analytics about the Russian Revolution, albeit from newspapers at that time, from hearsay. From his "damned far away," as he himself put it. "

In the first days of March, looking for ways to leave Switzerland, Lenin sent a letter to his assistant Yakub Ganetsky, who was at that time in Stockholm. He wrote: “You can't wait any longer, all hopes for a legal visit are in vain. It is necessary at all costs to get out to Russia immediately, and the only plan is the following:

find a Swede like me. But I don't know Swedish, so a Swede must be deaf and dumb. I am sending you my photo just in case. "

While waiting for the opportunity to get out to Russia, Lenin was busy drawing up theses on the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution. He noted the need for the organization of Soviets, the arming of the workers, the transfer of proletarian organizations to the army and the countryside. At the request of the revolutionary, who was at that time in Stockholm, to provide instructions for the Bolsheviks, he replied: “Raise new layers! Awaken a new initiative, new organizations in all strata and prove to them that peace will only be given by an armed Soviet of Workers' Deputies, if it takes power. "

Before leaving, Lenin collected all possible information about the revolution that had taken place, which could be obtained from the local newspapers. Having learned about the amnesty announced by the Provisional Government for political and religious affairs, he turned to Armand with a request, if she left for Russia, "in England to find out quietly and truly" whether he could return. He admonished the Bolsheviks who were leaving Switzerland for Russia: “Our tactics are: complete distrust, no support for the new government; We are especially suspicious of Kerensky; the arming of the proletariat is the only guarantee; immediate elections to the Petrograd Duma; no rapprochement with other parties. Wire it to Petrograd. "

In the hope of getting out of Switzerland through England, Lenin turned to the revolutionary Vyacheslav Karpinsky, who was in Geneva. He planned to travel illegally according to his documents. “I can wear a wig. The photo will be taken from me already in a wig ... ”- Lenin suggested. He was sure that if he went under his own name, he would be detained or arrested.

In emigrant circles, the idea arose to go to Russia via Germany.

They planned to obtain a travel permit in exchange for the Germans and Austrians internees in Russia. Lenin's friend, Swiss Friedrich Platten, who took personal responsibility for the move, contributed to the success in negotiations with the German authorities. In addition, the Germans believed that transporting Lenin to Russia would help them win the First World War. German general Max Hoffmann later recalled: “The corruption introduced into the Russian army by the revolution, we naturally tried to strengthen by means of propaganda. In the rear, someone who maintained relations with Russians living in exile in Switzerland came up with the idea of ​​using some of these Russians in order to destroy the spirit of the Russian army even more quickly and poison it with poison. "

Among the conditions put forward by Platten were, among other things, the requirement to allow persons to travel, regardless of their political views, the absence of interruptions in the movement of the train without technical need and the absence of document checks when entering and leaving Germany.

The Swiss Bolsheviks, at Lenin's request, informed the emigrants that the opportunity arose to go to Russia. A group of 32 people gathered in a few days.

They proceeded through the belligerent Germany, Sweden, Finland.

He wrote about the appearance of Lenin in Petrograd: “It is necessary to pay close attention to the vile idea of ​​the German military leadership, which it has already implemented. It is awe-inspiring that it has used its most formidable weapon against Russia. It transported Lenin in a sealed carriage from Switzerland to Russia like a plague bacillus. "

The statement about the sealed carriage is, of course, exaggerated - only three of the four doors were sealed.

The fourth door was used for communication with the outside world, for example, buying milk for the children in the carriage or receiving newspapers. As the author of the monograph "Lenin on the Train" Catherine Merridale notes, this myth arose because of Lenin's demand to endow his train with the status of extraterritoriality, so that it had nothing to do with Germany. On Lenin's initiative, a line was drawn in the carriage with chalk, dividing it into two parts: in one there were revolutionaries, in the other - German officers.

“Subsequently, Karl Radek, a former passenger on the train, and other passengers denied that the train doors were sealed,” says Merridale. "One of the four doors did not close at all, and the Swiss socialist Fritz Platten, through whom Lenin and his companions communicated with the guards, could freely go out at all stops, buy newspapers, milk for the two children on the train and other products."

Another requirement of Lenin was the payment of tickets from the passengers' own funds: in this way he showed that they were not going to accept German money. The emigrants took a supply of food with them, but customs officers confiscated food on the Swiss-German border - it was forbidden to bring food into the belligerent countries.

Lenin and his companions traveled in second and third class. Lenin himself and his wife rode in a separate compartment.

On their way home, the revolutionaries faced an unpleasant problem - there was only one toilet available to them in the carriage, the second was in the "German" part of the carriage.

In addition, Lenin banned smoking in the carriage, so the passengers went to the toilet to smoke. As a result, this led to a constant crush and noise near Lenin's compartment. He solved the problem by issuing tickets to go to the toilet in two classes: the first for those who needed to relieve themselves, and the second for smokers.

The trip took eight days. Arriving in Petrograd, Lenin immediately came out with the "April Theses" - a program of actions for the Russian Bolsheviks, which implied the struggle for the development of the bourgeois democratic revolution into a socialist one. Preparations for the October Revolution began.

At the beginning of March 1917, a new, decisive factor arose in the struggle between the government and the Duma. On March 3, a strike began at the Putilov factory, which by March 10 had turned into a general strike of all workers in the capital.

On March 11, the troops of the Petrograd garrison began to refuse to shoot at the workers. On March 12, several regiments came to the Tauride Palace, where the State Duma was located; The Duma was on the verge of dispersal (by decree of the tsar), but its members nevertheless continued to sit. The soldiers of the regiments who opposed the government announced their support for the Duma. In the evening of the same day, the Provisional Committee of the State Duma was formed, and the Council of Workers' Deputies immediately gathered. The next day, the leaders of the Duma organized a Provisional Government, headed by the chairman of the Union of Zemstvos, Prince Lvov. Together with the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, this government made the first statement.

On March 15, Nicholas II abdicated in favor of his brother Mikhail, who, in turn, renounced the throne on March 16, transferring power to the Provisional Government until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

The reign of the Romanovs is over. Russia actually turned into a republic, although the declaration of a republic was postponed until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

What caused the revolution? There were many reasons: the weakness of state power, aggravated by the conflict between Nicholas II and the Duma; widespread discontent with the emperor's policies in the army and throughout the country; special circumstances in Petrograd (they were of an economic nature: a sharp rise in prices and difficulties with food, queues in front of shops selling bread and other food products).

Of course, these difficulties turned out to be much less serious than those that awaited the country later, in 1919 and 1920. But in 1917, the population was not yet used to such problems, and therefore they were especially annoying.

In addition, active Bolshevik propaganda was carried out among the workers. It is difficult to say to what extent it played a significant role in fomenting the revolution; Minister Protopopov, for example, believed that her role was not the last.

Some observers also pointed to the participation of German agents in the campaign, but this has not been documented.

As for the troops of the Petrograd garrison, they were mainly driven by the fear of being sent to the front; that is why the first declaration of the Provisional Government included a clause stating that these troops should not be sent to the front. The soldiers of the Petrograd garrison did not suffer from poor nutrition.

But despite all these circumstances, the workers' movement (even intensified by the action of the local garrison) did not yet mean a revolution on a national scale. Only from the moment when the State Duma decided to lead the movement did the rebellion turn into a revolution.

The Provisional Government formed by the Duma soon showed that it was the bearer of supreme power only in name. In reality, power was divided between the government and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. The Provisional Government consisted mainly of the Cadets and their supporters. It consisted of only one socialist - the socialist-revolutionary Kerensky. Menshevik Chkheidze, invited to the government, refused to join it.

On the other hand, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet represented exclusively the members of the socialist parties and their supporters. Members of the bourgeois parties, even the most democratic of them, were not represented on the council. Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks predominated among those who entered the Executive Committee and the Plenum of the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolsheviks were in the minority (the same picture was in the councils formed in other cities of Russia).

The first question that arose before the Russian revolution was its attitude to the war. A significant part of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were defencists, that is, they stood for the continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks, as well as small groups of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, were defeatists and defended the need for an immediate end to the war. But in the first period, even the Bolsheviks did not openly oppose the continuation of the war in the councils. The majority in Petrograd and other soviets clearly stood for defense. But at the same time, an order was issued on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet - the so-called Order No. 1 - which effectively undermined discipline in the Russian army by urging soldiers to distrust officers and form their own councils in each army unit.

As General Brusilov wrote in his memoirs, the actions aimed at disorganizing the army were quite logical when they came from the Bolsheviks who wanted to interrupt the war, but it remained incomprehensible how the defencists could get involved in this game. The explanation of this fact is in the attitude of the defencist socialists to the Provisional Government. Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and especially the Mensheviks, in their views proceeded from the political conditions that prevailed in Russia before the revolution. They still imagined they were living in 1905, when they had to beware of the return of reaction and the restoration of the old regime. In fact, power already belonged to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. As it soon became clear, the Provisional Government was fully ripe to introduce socialists into its ranks. But the Mensheviks continued to regard the Provisional Government as an administration of the old type, with which they were always ready to fight. The Provisional Government, in its convictions, turned out to be completely democratic, but the socialists considered it a bourgeois government. The tactic of the majority in the council was to refuse to support the Provisional Government (except when it was implementing a democratic program).

Undermining the government and its attempts to rely on the army, the socialists tried to ensure their own influence in the troops. At the same time, obviously, they overlooked the fact that the army is at war.

When the revolution took place, almost all socialist groups found themselves without their leaders, who were either in exile or abroad. Those who were in exile were the first to return. On April 1, Tsereteli returned from Siberia, a member of the Second State Duma, exiled as a result of the trial of the Social Democratic faction of this Duma. A week earlier, the Bolshevik Kamenev arrived from Siberia, where he was exiled at the beginning of the war.

Kamenev immediately became a member of the editorial board of Pravda, the publication of which resumed a few days earlier. He also became the leader of the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee, which emerged as a legal organization on March 15th. Before Lenin's arrival, Kamenev played a leading role among the Bolsheviks. His policy towards the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries was of a conciliatory nature. He was not a tough politician and, moreover, he understood that the victory of the revolution was a common achievement of the radical parties.

Even during his stay in Siberia, when Kamenev received news that Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich had renounced the throne, he sent him a telegram of greetings, addressing it to citizen Mikhail Romanov. Kamenev maintained his articles in Pravda and speeches in the Soviet in a loyal tone towards the Provisional Government. So, in the first period of the revolution, the Bolsheviks did not sharply separate themselves from other socialists and only tried to impart a leftist tendency to public sentiments within the Soviet itself.

In April, those leaders of the Russian Social Democracy who were abroad began to return. On April 13, Plekhanov arrived in Petrograd from France. April 16 from Switzerland - Lenin and Martov, in early May from the United States - Trotsky. Plekhanov has now become a passionate defencist; the other three are internationalists, including Martov. Lenin and Martov returned to Russia in an unusual way, traveling through the territory of Germany in a "sealed" railway carriage.

When the revolution began in Russia, Lenin was in Switzerland. He immediately reacted extremely hostile to the Provisional Government. On March 16, he wrote to Alexandra Kollontai: “A week of bloody battles between the workers and Milyukov + Guchkov + Kerensky in power !! According to the “old” European template ”.

In the first of his Letters from Afar, Lenin describes the events that took place in Russia:

The St. Petersburg workers and soldiers, like the workers and soldiers of all of Russia, selflessly fought against the tsarist monarchy, for freedom, for land for the peasants, for peace, against the imperialist slaughter. In the interests of continuing and intensifying this massacre, the Anglo-Franiusz imperialist capital forged palace intrigues, arranged a conspiracy ... incited and encouraged the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, set up a completely ready-made new government, which seized power after the very first blows of the proletarian struggle inflicted on tsarism.

This government is not a random bunch of people.

These are representatives of a new class that has risen to political power in Russia, the class of capitalist landowners and the bourgeoisie, which has long ruled our country economically and which both during the revolution of 1905-1907 and during the counter-revolution of 1907-1914, and finally - and moreover, with particular speed - during the war of 1914-1917, it was extremely quickly organized politically, taking into its own hands both local self-government, and public education, and congresses of various types, and the Duma, and military-industrial committees, etc. This new class "Almost completely" was already in power by 1917; therefore, the first blows to tsarism were enough for it to collapse, clearing the place of the bourgeoisie.

For Lenin, the Provisional Government was "the clerk of billions of dollars in firms: England and France."

On March 30, Lenin wrote to Ganetsky in Stockholm: "The main thing is to overthrow the bourgeois government and start with Russia, for otherwise peace cannot be obtained." Ganetsky, who lived in Stockholm at that time, was an intermediary between Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia. To successfully carry out mediation, money was needed, and he obviously had large sums on his account, since in the already mentioned letter Lenin gave him the following instruction: "Do not spare money on Peter's relations with Stockholm !!"

From what sources did Ganetsky receive funds for Bolshevik propaganda in Russia? Until recently, the Bolsheviks did not publish information about the party budget for this period. Therefore, one can only build hypotheses.

Ganetsky acted in Stockholm as the commercial representative of Parvus. As already noted, Parvus spoke of the need to coordinate actions between the German military command and the Russian revolutionaries. He announced this publicly, considering it his duty to serve as an "intellectual barometer" of relations between the German armed forces and the revolutionary Russian proletariat. At one time, Lenin harshly criticized certain aspects of Parvus's views. However, now Ganetsky has appeared in Stockholm as a representative of both Lenin and Parvus. Undoubtedly, Parvus had the opportunity to supply Ganetsky with money for Bolshevik propaganda. During the war, Parvus was engaged in the supply of the German army and large speculations, so significant sums passed through his hands. Parvus could also get money to "deepen the revolution" in Russia and directly from the "German imperialists". Whoever financed Ganetsky, the fact remains that in the spring of 1917 he had the funds at his disposal to deploy further Bolshevik propaganda.

After receiving the first news of the revolution, Lenin made every conceivable effort to leave for Russia. The task was not easy. During the war, the road through Germany was officially closed to all Russians. Communication from Switzerland with Russia at this time was carried out through France and England. But since the Allies were aware of Lenin's defeatist views, the French and British governments could object to his passage through their territories.

After pondering the current situation, Lenin and other Russian internationalists who were in Switzerland decided to go through Germany. It should be noted that neither Lenin nor his supporters applied to the British and French authorities for permission to travel.

To travel through Germany, it was necessary not only to obtain permission from the German government, but also to try to present the case in a favorable light, since suspicions of treason (following through enemy territory) inevitably arose.

A similar plan was proposed by Martov, who was the leader of the Menshevik internationalists. Continuing to remain a theoretician far from life, believing in the power of formulas, Martov probably believed that this episode should look quite decent, since theoretically it appears to be so to himself. He was hardly involved in any negotiations for a practical agreement with the German imperialists. His plan was to offer Germany to allow Russian émigrés to pass through its territory in exchange for an appropriate number of Germans and Austrians interned in Russia.

First of all, they decided to turn to the Swiss government to play the role of a mediator. In this way, they wanted to maintain a decent appearance at the international level. The Swiss socialist Grimm, one of the leaders of the Zimmerwald movement, was elected to conduct the negotiations. In the political department of the Swiss Federal Council, he was told that the Swiss government could not go to official mediation, as this could be regarded as a violation of neutrality. Then Grimm privately turned to the representative of the German government in Switzerland. After that, he withdrew from participation in mediation, and further negotiations were continued by another Swiss socialist Platten, a close acquaintance of Lenin and his supporter, one of the members of the Zimmerwald Left: Platten submitted to the German Embassy in Bern Lenin's proposals for organizing the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany by taking personal responsibility. Two days later, the conditions proposed by Platten were accepted by the German government, of course, with the consent of the German General Staff. General Hoffmann pointed to Reichstag deputy Erzberger as a mediator in these negotiations. Scheidemann, leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and later Chancellor of the German Republic, claimed that Parvus had arranged for Lenin's passage through Germany.

The motives that inspired the German government and the General Staff to do this are obvious. This is what General Ludendorff and General Hoffmann said.

Ludendorff said: “For sending Lenin to Russia, our government assumed a special responsibility. From a military point of view, his trip was justified - Russia has fallen. " General Hoffmann wrote: "Just as I throw grenades into the enemy's trenches, as I release poisonous gases against them, as their adversary, I have the right to use means of propaganda against the opposing forces."

The consent to provide Lenin and his comrades with the opportunity to get to Russia was in reality the introduction of pathogenic microbes into the body of the Russian state. Germany's calculations did not require special comment. Germany continued the same policy that the Austrian government had previously pursued when, at the beginning of the war, it released Lenin from arrest and allowed him to leave for Switzerland. Of course, the German government could not take seriously the condition that Lenin used to camouflage his trip - the exchange of Russian emigrants for Germans interned in Russia. It clearly follows from Ludendorff's words that for the German government the question was not to allow Lenin to proceed through Germany, but to send him to Russia.

The German government did not publish documents about Lenin's trip to Germany. As for Lenin himself, he published only the resolutions of Russian and foreign socialists adopted in Switzerland. They concerned the start of negotiations and the proposed travel conditions.

The railway carriage in which Lenin, Martov and other emigrants were, was hitched to a train bound for Germany on April 8, 1917. On April 13, Lenin boarded a sea ferry going from Sassnitz to Sweden. So, the trip to Germany lasted at least four days - from April 9 to 12. In Trelleborg Lenin was met by Ganetsky, who then accompanied him to Stockholm. On the morning of April 14, Lenin found himself in Stockholm, and late in the evening of April 16, he arrived in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks gave him a solemn welcome. Workers, sailors and soldiers filled the entire Finland Station and the square in front of it. The armored car, which was at the disposal of the Bolshevik Committee, delivered Lenin to the mansion that formerly belonged to the ballerina Kshesinskaya. At the beginning of the revolution, it was captured by the Bolshevik committee and served as the headquarters of the Bolsheviks until the July uprising.

The arrival of Lenin introduced fundamental changes in the tactics of the Bolsheviks. On the very first night after arriving in Russia, at a meeting in the Kshesinskaya mansion, he made a speech that sounded a sharp dissonance to the previous conciliatory policy of the Bolsheviks. On April 17, he wrote his famous theses, which Pravda published two days later.

Lenin's first thesis was related to the war. For him, the war "on the part of Russia and under the new government of Lvov and Co. undoubtedly remains a predatory, imperialist war due to the capitalist nature of this government, not the slightest concessions to" revolutionary defencism "are permissible. His third thesis read: "No support for the Provisional Government, an explanation of the complete falsity of all its promises." The fifth thesis suggested: "Not a parliamentary republic ... but a republic of Soviets of workers, farm laborers and peasants' deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom."

Lenin's theses met with misunderstanding at the very center of the Bolshevik Party. Kamenev answered Lenin in the next issue of Pravda. Goldenberg announced that "Lenin has hoisted the banner of civil war in the midst of revolutionary democracy." It scarcely needs to be said that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries took a hostile position in relation to the theses.

Lenin found himself in isolation. But several times during his career, he remained alone and did not show fear. And now he showed no signs of concern. Lenin found himself in much more favorable conditions than before. He received complete freedom for agitation and propaganda. He was in Russia, at the very center of the revolution and the Russian workers' movement, and specifically in the place where the Bolsheviks had the firm support of the workers, enlightened by the Bolshevik newspapers during the period of the Dumas. Lenin directed his efforts mainly towards training party cadres from workers and soldiers. He also tried not to limit himself to abstract agitation, but gave practical lessons, trained his supporters to organize street demonstrations. At this point, it was important to choose slogans that would not confuse him with the majority in the Council. Therefore, Lenin at first tried to direct his blows not at the parties in the Soviet, but at the Provisional Government and especially at those aspects of its activity that could be classified as bourgeois and imperialist.

The first such opportunity presented itself to Lenin after the statement of Foreign Minister Milyukov, in which he confirmed the loyalty of the Provisional Government to the war allies and loyalty to the treaties concluded between the allies. This statement showed the imperialist aspirations of the Provisional Government. Such a policy, pursuing the goals of annexation, was unacceptable not only for the internationalists, but also for the defencist socialists. The Bolsheviks got the opportunity to oppose the Provisional Government, hiding behind slogans not only of their own party, but of the entire Soviet. On May 3 and 4, they organized street demonstrations against Milyukov. The cadets staged a retaliatory demonstration in support of him.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies assumed the role of a kind of arbiter between the Cadets and Bolsheviks. All demonstrations were banned for two days. However, these events led to the reorganization of the Provisional Government. Milyukov and Guchkov, the most active ministers of the first cabinet, were forced to resign. The new government included Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Kerensky became Minister of War.

In May and June, Lenin was engaged in intensive party work. From May 7 to May 12, he chaired the All-Russian Bolshevik Party Conference, which in its resolutions approved the main provisions of Lenin's theses. The Provisional Government was declared a "government of landlords and capitalists", and an alliance with the defencists — the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks — was recognized as absolutely impossible. But in assessing the war, the conference noticeably softened the tone of Lenin's theses, noting that

... you cannot end a war by ending hostilities by one of the belligerents. The conference protests again and again against the low slander spread by the capitalists against our party, that we sympathize with a separate (separate) peace with Germany ... Our party will patiently but persistently explain to the people that truth ... that this war can be ended with a democratic peace only through the transition of the whole the state power of at least a few belligerent countries is in the hands of the proletarian class, which is really capable of putting an end to the oppression of capital.

The Bolshevik conference showed that Lenin was firmly at the helm of his party. In the elections to the Central Committee, he received an overwhelming majority of votes, securing himself almost unanimous approval.

In addition to internal party problems, Lenin focused on the labor question, trying by all means to strengthen the influence of the Bolsheviks on the workers of Petrograd.

Soon after the revolution in Russia, at the beginning of 1917, there was a rapid growth of trade union organizations, whose activities during the war years were under strong pressure by the authorities. From April to June 1917, the total number of members of the various trade unions doubled. On the one hand, trade unions arose by profession, on the other hand, trade unions were founded, embracing the workers of the entire enterprise into a single association. Almost every plant had a so-called "factory committee". In May, they were legalized by the Provisional Government. In June, the Petrograd conference of such committees met, which laid the foundations for the coordination of their activities.

A struggle soon began between the factory committees and the trade unions, exacerbated by their political differences. The trade unions were under the strong influence of the Mensheviks, while the factory committees fell under the propaganda of the Bolsheviks. All this was revealed at the June conference of the Petrograd committees, when Lenin proclaimed the slogan of workers' control in production. The conference approved his proposal.

After his success with the workers, Lenin felt firm ground under his feet for a major political demonstration. In mid-June, the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets was convened in Petrograd. The majority of the 790 delegates to the congress were Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. There were only 103 Bolsheviks. At this congress Lenin pronounced a verdict on the state, where the Soviets share power with the Provisional Government. He spoke in favor of rule in the form of a single republic of Soviets.

When the leader of the Mensheviks, Tsereteli, said that there was no political party in Russia that would take responsibility for power entirely upon itself, Lenin objected: “Yes! Not a single party can secede from responsibility, and our party does not refuse this: every minute it is ready to take power entirely. " His statement was greeted with laughter. However, he was not joking: successes in the working environment turned his head.

On June 23, the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks called a demonstration in support of the transfer of power to the Soviets. If it succeeded, it was possible to set the task of overthrowing the Provisional Government. But word of this reached the leaders of the Congress of Soviets, and at the last moment the Bolshevik Central Committee considered it expedient to cancel this plan. But Lenin did not give up - his influence among the workers continued to grow. In early June, the All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions convened in Petrograd, at which the balance of power turned out to be completely different from the balance at the Congress of Soviets.

True, the Bolsheviks had not yet been able to take control of the voting at the conference, but their forces were already equal to those of the Mensheviks. For further leadership of the labor movement, the conference elected the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. 16 Bolsheviks, 16 Mensheviks and 3 Socialist Revolutionaries were elected to this Council. Thanks to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks secured an advantage in the executive committee (5 Mensheviks against 4 Bolsheviks).

The offensive of the Russian army, prepared by Kerensky, began on July 1 on the southwestern front. During the first days it developed successfully. For further Bolshevik actions, the situation looked unfavorable. On July 11, Lenin left for a few days to rest at Bonch-Bruyevich's dacha in Finland. During these few days the state of political affairs in Petrograd changed so much that a split occurred in the Provisional Government.

The issue of Ukraine's autonomy became the basis for the dispute. On July 14, a delegation of the Provisional Government consisting of three ministers (Tsereteli, Kerensky and Tereshchenko) signed an agreement in Kiev with the All-Ukrainian Central Rada formed there. Having received this news, the Cadet ministers left the Provisional Government, since they believed that the question of Ukraine's autonomy could not be resolved before the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Their resignation triggered a government crisis. The problem of reorganizing the government arose. The Bolsheviks considered this moment favorable for the seizure of power.

On July 16, rallies at factories and party meetings of the Bolsheviks began. On the morning of the 17th, Lenin hastily returned to Petrograd and took over the leadership of the movement. On the same day, a large mass demonstration took place in the capital. It was organized by the Bolsheviks under the slogans "Down with 10 capitalist ministers", "Peace to huts, war to palaces."

Several thousand sailors arrived from Kronstadt. The troops of the Petrograd garrison partly wavered, partly went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. Many of the workers participating in the demonstration were armed. On that day, the preponderance of forces was clearly on the side of the Bolsheviks. But they either did not know how to implement it, or did not want to take the risk by taking a decisive step: arresting the ministers of the Provisional Government and seizing official institutions. The whole day was spent in street demonstrations, during which there were clashes and shootings, there were wounded and killed.

The next day, July 18, the picture changed. The government called in strong cavalry from the Northern Front. In addition, after the publication of evidence by the Minister of Justice Pereverzev that Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders received money from Germany, the mood of a number of regiments of the Petrograd garrison changed in favor of the Provisional Government.

The protest movement was over. On July 19, government troops occupied the Kshesinskaya mansion (where the Bolshevik Central Committee was located), as well as the Peter and Paul Fortress. The editorial office and printing house of Pravda were defeated by an armed detachment of junkers. At the same time, the Provisional Government issued warrants for the arrest of Lenin, Zinoviev and Trotsky.

The information published on July 18 was obtained from counterintelligence and accused Lenin of receiving funds from Germany through Sweden. The documents named Parvus, Ganetsky and Kozlovsky as agents and intermediaries. By order of the Minister of Justice, Pereverzev, who was a Menshevik, the documents were made public. The actual head of the government, Kerensky (a few days later he formally became prime minister) considered this publication a mistake, since it prevented the arrest of Ganetsky, who was just at that time on his way from Stockholm to Petrograd. According to Kerensky, his arrest could provide new and irrefutable evidence of the cooperation of the Bolsheviks with the Germans. Ganetsky, having learned about the publication of the Provisional Government, when he had not yet reached Russian territory, immediately turned back to Stockholm.

As a result of this disagreement with Kerensky, Pereverzev was forced to resign. On July 18, immediately after the publication of information from the military counterintelligence, Lenin wrote an article for the Bolshevik edition of Listok Pravda, in which the information that had appeared was declared malicious slander. Lenin even denied his connection with Ganetsky. At the end of the article, he stated:

We add that Ganetsky and Kozlovsky are both not Bolsheviks, but members of the Polish Social-Democratic Party. party that Ganecki was a member of its Central Committee, known to us from the London Congress (1903), from which the Polish delegates left. The Bolsheviks did not receive any money from either Ganetsky or Kozlovsky. All of this is a lie.

Lenin's desire to renounce Ganetsky makes a strange impression. There is no doubt that Ganetsky was closely associated with the Bolsheviks. Together with Vorovsky and Radek, he was a member of the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee in Stockholm. At the beginning of the war and revolution, Ganetsky helped Lenin and received instructions from him. Lenin's assertion that the Bolsheviks did not receive "any money from either Ganetsky or Kozlovsky" was an obvious lie, since Lenin himself, in a letter dated March 30, 1917, addressed Ganetsky in Stockholm with a request: “Do not regret the relations between Peter and Stockholm of money!!"

It should also be noted that after the Bolshevik revolution, Ganetsky served in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and later was a member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade of the USSR.

So, the cooperation of Ganetsky with the Bolsheviks is not in doubt. Lenin's refutation - at least in relation to Ganetsky - is definitely not credible.

As for Parvus, Lenin did not mention him in his statement on July 18, but on July 19 or 20 he wrote in an article that was not published at the time:

"They are entangling Parvus, trying their best to create some kind of connection between him and the Bolsheviks."

Lenin further notes that the Bolsheviks demonstratively refused to deal with Parvus. Lenin is silent about the fact that it was Parvus who arranged for him to travel through Germany in a "sealed" carriage.

Lenin could not deny the contacts between Ganetsky and Parvus, but he explained them exclusively by mutual trade interests: "Ganetsky conducted trade affairs as an employee of a company in which Parvus participated." Lenin protested against the attempts of his accusers to confuse these commercial relations with political ones.

In any case, Lenin could have refuted the charges against him at the trial. At first he was going to do so, and in his first statement in the “Leaf of Pravda” wrote: “Now the slanderers will answer before the court. From this point of view, the matter is simple and uncomplicated. "

But then Lenin reconsidered this issue. Overestimating the decisiveness of the Provisional Government, he reasoned that the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising would give the government an excuse to settle scores with the Bolsheviks. “Now they will shoot us,” he told Trotsky on the morning of 18 July. "This is the most convenient moment for them."

In a note written three days later, noting that going to court would be a constitutional illusion, he continued:

If we assume that in Russia there is and possibly a correct government, a correct court, and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly is probable, then we can come to the conclusion in favor of a turnout. But such an opinion is completely wrong ... the convocation of the Constituent Assembly is incredible without a new revolution ... a military dictatorship is in effect. It's funny to talk about "court" here. The point is not in the "trial", but in the episode of the civil war. That is what the supporters of the turnout do not want to understand in vain.

With the approval of several members of the Central and Petrograd Bolshevik Committees, on July 27, Lenin and Zinoviev decided to hide and go underground. On the same day, Kamenev was arrested. Trotsky and Lunacharsky were arrested two weeks later. On July 28, the newspaper Proletarskoye Delo published a letter signed by Lenin and Zinoviev about the reasons for their refusal to appear in court:

The counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie is trying to create a new Dreyfus case ... There are no guarantees of justice in Russia at the moment ... To surrender oneself now into the hands of the authorities would mean giving oneself into the hands of the Milyukovs, Aleksinsky, Pereverzevs, into the hands of angry counterrevolutionaries, for whom all the accusations against us are a simple episode in the civil war.

Assessing this part of the statement of Lenin and Zinoviev, it should be remembered that neither Miliukov nor Pereverzev were at that time ministers, and Aleksinsky was never a member of the Provisional Government. At that time, the government more than half consisted of Socialist Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

At the end of their statement, Lenin and Zinoviev wrote that only the "Constituent Assembly, if it meets and is not convened by the bourgeoisie," will have the right to issue (or not issue) an order for their arrest.

From July 22 to November 7, 1917, Lenin was underground. For the first few days, he and Zinoviev hid in the attic of a barn that belonged to a Bolshevik worker, near Sestroretsk (34 kilometers from Petrograd). Then Lenin moved to a haystack a few kilometers from the Razliv station. In early September, when the cold approached, he moved to the border with Finland and arrived in Helsingfors on a steam locomotive, posing as a stoker. There he stayed with the head of the militia, a Finnish Social Democrat, then moved to a Finnish worker, also a Social Democrat. In early October, he left Helsingfors for Vyborg to be closer to Petrograd, where new events were mounting. All this time, he continued to maintain close contact with the Bolshevik organization and the press, trying to direct their activities.

The VI Congress of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks), which met in Petrograd on August 8, elected Lenin (in his absence) as honorary chairman and member of the Central Committee. Now Lenin declared the immediate task of preparing an armed uprising. He reported this to the Sixth Congress in an article on the political situation he wrote on 23 July:

All hopes for the peaceful development of the Russian revolution have completely disappeared. Objective situation: either the victory of the military dictatorship to the end, or the victory of the armed uprising of the workers. The aim of an armed uprising can only be the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, to carry out the program of our party. The party of the working class, without abandoning legality, but not even for a moment exaggerating it, must combine legal work with illegal work, as in 1912-1914.

In this article, Lenin called the Kerensky government a military dictatorship, which was unfair: neither Kerensky nor any of the other leaders in power in Petrograd possessed sufficient determination to establish a dictatorship, although circumstances pushed them to do so. In fact, the attempt to establish a military dictatorship was made by the leader of the army at the front.

On July 19, the same day when the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd was suppressed, the Germans successfully broke through the Russian front near Tarnopol. The Russian army of the revolutionary period showed complete inability to resist the enemy attack. A disorderly retreat began.

By order of July 25, Kerensky reinstated the death penalty for deserters at the front. On July 31, General Kornilov, a supporter of a decisive restoration of discipline in the troops, was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Then Savinkov became an assistant to the Minister of War. He acted as an intermediary between Kerensky and Kornilov, implementing a program of disciplining the army. But it soon became clear that General Kornilov was being promoted to a leading position, he was the leader of all forces that wanted discipline in the army and order in the country.

General Kornilov began to look more and more like a military dictator. During the State Conference that opened in Moscow on August 25, his popularity among bourgeois circles became evident. This meeting of representatives of various parties and organizations turned out to be rather helpless. It is interesting only in one respect - as an indicator of the depth of the split and demarcation between the socialist groups (including the defencists) and the bourgeois. While the left wing of the conference greeted Kerensky with enthusiasm, the right wing received General Kornilov with equal enthusiasm.

Kornilov's exceptional success at the Moscow Conference engendered doubts in Kerensky's soul. At the last moment, just before the approval of the plan for restoring discipline in the army, Kerensky feared that Kornilov would establish a dictatorship, and ordered his removal from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Kornilov refused to obey the order and sent cavalry units to Petrograd. Kerensky and the Mensheviks from the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets now turned to the Bolsheviks and workers for help in order to oppose some kind of force to Kornilov's troops.

The workers responded, organized a workers' militia, and thus the existence of the armed units of the Bolshevik workers - the Red Guard - was legalized. The matter did not come to a battle, the troops of Kornilov began fraternizing with the troops of the Provisional Government. The general's mutiny failed. Kerensky became the supreme commander in chief, Kornilov was arrested. Kornilov's failure was accompanied by a rift between the Kerensky government and conservative social groups. This put Kerensky in the hands of leftist radical groups led by the Bolsheviks.

Bolshevik leaders arrested after the July events were released, including Trotsky. The influence of the Bolsheviks on workers and soldiers (and to some extent on the peasants) began to grow rapidly. The country was in a state of complete administrative and economic chaos. The interim government proved unable to cope with the crisis. The most important issues of the moment - war or peace, solving problems with food, with land ownership - were shelved until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

Elections to the Constituent Assembly were scheduled for November 25. There was not so much time left until this date, but the masses were excited, no one wanted to wait for a single day.

On September 19, the Petrograd Soviet adopted a Bolshevik resolution on power. This led to the resignation of the Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary Presidium of the Council. The new Bolshevik history of the Petrograd Soviet dates back to the day when the council moved from the Tauride Palace to the Smolny Institute (a former boarding house for the daughters of the nobility). In the Tauride Palace, repair work began to prepare the building for the opening of the Constituent Assembly there.

On October 8, Trotsky was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. At a meeting of the council on October 22, a resolution was adopted on the formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, designed to oppose the headquarters of the Petrograd military district, which wanted to withdraw the revolutionary troops from Petrograd. This meant an almost complete seizure of power.

After the failure of the Kornilov revolt, Lenin began to think over options for the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. His thought worked in two directions: first, it was necessary to develop a program that the Bolsheviks would follow after the seizure of power. Secondly, it was necessary to push the Bolshevik organizations to the quickest overthrow of the government. He outlined the program of action of the Bolsheviks after the government coup in an article entitled "The Tasks of the Revolution" and published in the newspaper "Rabochy Put" on October 9-10. The following provisions were indicated as the main ones:

1. It is necessary not to allow a compromise with the bourgeoisie.

2. All power in the state should be transferred to the councils.

3. The Soviet government must invite all the belligerent peoples to immediately conclude a peace on democratic terms.

4. The Soviet government must immediately abolish, without redemption, the private ownership of the lands of the large landowners and transfer these lands under the control of the peasant committees until the final decision of the question by the Constituent Assembly.

5. The Soviet government must immediately introduce workers' control over production and consumption.

6. The Soviet government must arrest the Kornilov generals and the leaders of the bourgeoisie by creating a special commission to investigate counter-revolutionary conspiracies; should close the bourgeois newspapers and confiscate their printing houses.

7. The convocation of the Constituent Assembly must be guaranteed within the designated period.

In an article entitled “Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” Written in the second week of October, Lenin discussed the means by which the Bolsheviks, after seizing power, could force civil service officials to work for them. The main means, in his opinion, should be the confiscation by the state of all food and other means necessary for life and providing them only to those persons who support the Soviet power:

"He who does not work should not eat" - this is the basic, first and foremost rule that the Soviets of Workers' Deputies can and will introduce when they become financial power ... in all, their field of activity, work book, they must receive a certificate from this union weekly or after some other definite period that they are doing their work in good faith; without this they cannot receive a bread card and foodstuffs in general.

In early September, Lenin began to rush the Bolshevik organizations, urging them to urgently prepare for the overthrow of the government. Around September 25-27, he wrote a letter addressed to the Central, as well as the Petrograd and Moscow party committees, about the need to take power in Moscow and Petrograd: "We will win unconditionally and undoubtedly."

On October 10, Lenin wrote to I. T. Smilga, chairman of the Regional Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers of Finland. He drew his attention to the exceptional importance of assistance from the Russian troops in Finland at the time of the overthrow of the government by the Bolsheviks. He expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the Central Committee had decided to postpone the uprising until November 2, the date of the opening of the Second Congress of Soviets. Lenin considered it possible for the Petrograd Soviet to take power, which, in turn, could transfer it to the Congress of Soviets.

On October 22, the day when the Military Revolutionary Committee was founded under the Petrograd Soviet, Lenin moved from Vyborg to Lesnoy, near Petrograd. The next day, for the first time after the July events, he took part in a meeting of the Central Committee. It was held in Sukhanov's Petrograd apartment under the chairmanship of Sverdlov. By a majority of 10 votes against 2, the Central Committee approved the resolution proposed by Lenin on the early start of the uprising. The two committee members who voted against were Kamenev and Zinoviev. Lenin called them "strikebreakers" and threatened them with expulsion from the party.

The necessary preparatory measures were taken under Trotsky's leadership. On November 1, a conference of factory committees approved a resolution on the transfer of power to the Soviets. On November 3, at a conference of committees representing the regiments of the Petrograd garrison, the Military Revolutionary Committee was recognized as the governing body of the army sections in Petrograd. On November 4, the delegates of the Petrograd regiments gave instructions that the soldiers were obliged to carry out the orders of the headquarters only if they were endorsed by the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Throughout this period, the Provisional Government was in hibernation, watching the events, but not taking any measures. Finally, on November 6, it decided to call the cadets to guard the Winter Palace (the Provisional Government was located there). The commander of the Petrograd Military District issued an order to the troops prohibiting the implementation of the orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee. In the evening of the same day, Lenin sent a letter to the Bolshevik Central Committee, demanding immediate action. Paraphrasing the words of Peter the Great, he wrote:

"Delay in performing is like death." Having put on his make-up, Lenin, late in the evening of November 6, moved from Lesnoy to Smolny Institute, from where he began to direct the events.

On the night of November 6-7, troops under the command of the Military Revolutionary Committee occupied all the main government buildings, railway stations and the services of the Main Telegraph. Early in the morning of November 7, Kerensky fled by car from Petrograd to Gatchina. The rest of the members of the Provisional Government remained in the Winter Palace. Soon the Bolshevik troops surrounded the Winter Palace. The victory of the Bolsheviks was now indubitable.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, Lenin issued an appeal "To the Citizens of Russia," announcing that "The Provisional Government has been deposed ... The cause for which the people fought: the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of landlord ownership of land, workers' control over production, the creation of a Soviet government, this is provided ”.

At 2 pm, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, he made another, more detailed, statement in the same spirit. At 10.45 pm the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened.

A little later, the Bolshevik troops occupied the Winter Palace. Members of the Provisional Government were arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Notes:

So in the English edition of Vernadsky's book. Lenin: degenerated into "vulgar philistine radicalism" (Approx. Transl.)

"And the soldiers" is added in the English text - Lenin does not have that. (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin does not use the word "soldiers" again. (Approx. Transl.)

With Lenin "in the hands of the class of proletarians and semi-proletarians." (Approx. Transl.)

It was printed like this - it should be: "1907" (Note by G. Vernadsky).

In the English text: "in a decisive conflict of workers." (Approx. Transl.)

In the English text: "conflict". (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin has just "landlord lands", without division into large and small landowners. (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin does not have the word "financial". (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin said: "Victory is assured, and nine-tenths chances that it is bloodless." (Approx. Transl.)

1917 is a year of upheavals and revolutions in Russia and its finale came on the night of October 25, when all power passed to the Soviets. What are the reasons, course, results of the Great October Socialist Revolution - these and other questions of history are in the center of our attention today.

Causes

Many historians argue that the events of October 1917 were both inevitable and unexpected at the same time. Why? Inevitable, because by that time a certain situation had developed in the Russian Empire, which predetermined the further course of history. This was due to a number of reasons:

• Results of the February Revolution : she was greeted with unprecedented delight and enthusiasm, which soon turned into the opposite - bitter disappointment. Indeed, the action of the revolutionary-minded "lower classes" - soldiers, workers and peasants, led to a serious shift - the overthrow of the monarchy. But this is where the achievements of the revolution ended. The expected reforms "hung in the air": the longer the Provisional Government postponed consideration of pressing problems, the faster the dissatisfaction grew in society;
• Overthrow of the monarchy : On March 2 (15), 1917, the Russian Emperor Nicholas II signed his abdication. However, the question of the form of government in Russia - a monarchy or a republic - remained open. The Provisional Government decided to consider it during the next convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Such uncertainty could lead to only one thing - anarchy, which happened.
• The mediocre policy of the Provisional Government : the slogans under which the February Revolution took place, its aspirations and achievements were actually buried by the actions of the Provisional Government: Russia's participation in the First World War continued; the majority of votes in the government blocked the land reform and the reduction of the working day to 8 hours; autocracy was not annulled;
• Russia's participation in World War I: any war is an extremely costly undertaking. It literally "sucks" all the juices out of the country: people, production, money - everything goes to support it. The First World War was no exception, and Russia's participation in it undermined the country's economy. After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government did not back down from its obligations to the allies. But discipline in the army had already been undermined, and widespread desertion began in the army.
• Anarchy: already in the name of the government of that period - the Provisional Government, the spirit of the times can be traced - order and stability were destroyed, and they were replaced by anarchy - anarchy, lawlessness, confusion, spontaneity. This manifested itself in all spheres of the country's life: an autonomous government was formed in Siberia, which was not subordinate to the capital; Finland and Poland declared independence; in the villages, the peasants were engaged in unauthorized redistribution of land, burned landlord estates; the government was mainly engaged in the struggle with the Soviets for power; decomposition of the army and many other events;
• The rapid growth of the influence of the Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies : During the February Revolution, the Bolshevik Party was not among the most popular. But over time, this organization becomes the main political player. Their populist slogans for an immediate end to the war and for reform found great support among angry workers, peasants, soldiers and militia. Not the last was the role of Lenin, as the creator and leader of the Bolshevik party that carried out the October Revolution of 1917.

Rice. 1. Mass strikes in 1917

The stages of the uprising

Before speaking briefly about the 1917 revolution in Russia, it is necessary to answer the question of the suddenness of the uprising itself. The fact is, the actually existing dual power in the country - the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks, should have ended in a kind of explosion and in the future with the victory of one of the parties. Therefore, the Soviets began preparations for the seizure of power in August, while the government was preparing and taking measures to prevent it. But the events that happened on the night of October 25, 1917, came as a complete surprise to the latter. The consequences of the establishment of Soviet power also became unpredictable.

As early as October 16, 1917, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party made a fateful decision - to prepare for an armed uprising.

On October 18, the Petrograd garrison refused to obey the Provisional Government, and on October 21, representatives of the garrison announced their subordination to the Petrograd Soviet, as the only representative of the legal power in the country. Starting from October 24, key points of Petrograd - bridges, train stations, telegraphs, banks, power plants and printing houses, were seized by the Military Revolutionary Committee. On the morning of October 25, the Provisional Government kept only one object - the Winter Palace. Despite this, at 10 o'clock in the morning of the same day, an appeal was issued, which announced that henceforth the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies was the only organ of state power in Russia.

In the evening at 9 o'clock, a blank shot of the cruiser Aurora signaled the start of the storming of the Winter Palace, and on the night of October 26, members of the Provisional Government were arrested.

Rice. 2. Streets of Petrograd on the eve of the uprising

Outcomes

As you know, history does not like the subjunctive mood. It is impossible to say what would have happened if it had not been for this or that event and vice versa. Everything that happens happens due to not a single reason, but many, which at one moment intersected at one point and showed the world an event with all its positive and negative aspects: civil war, a huge number of dead, millions who left the country forever, terror, the building of an industrial power , the elimination of illiteracy, free education, medical care, the building of the world's first socialist state, and much more. But, speaking about the main significance of the October Revolution of 1917, one thing should be said - it was a profound revolution in the ideology, economy and structure of the state as a whole, which influenced not only the course of the history of Russia, but the whole world.

To the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

In the year of the centenary of the Great October Revolution, tubs of rude and sophisticated lies and slander will be poured out by the haters of the socialist revolution in the name of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

He, who passed away almost a hundred years ago, is even now taking revenge for Soviet power, for the USSR and for the breakthrough of mankind to socialism. The works of honest and conscientious authors, who form a powerful cultural layer of Leniniana, will help us, the Soviet people, the Communists, to protect the people's memory of Lenin. Particularly valuable among them are works marked by the talent of scientific research and bright journalism. This is the kind of talent you will feel when reading Vladlen Loginov's book "Unknown Lenin" (Moscow, 2010).

Dialectical "thought, sharpened by feeling"

In our opinion, the author of the named book possesses the skill of publicistic presentation of scientific truths. The magnificent Russian language, full of relief images, subtle psychological characteristics, sketches of dramas and tragedies of the time under study. Reading V. Loginov's book, you will feel Lenin's irony and sarcasm in angry political denunciations of the bourgeoisie and its servants, revolutionary passion and, of course, historical optimism emanating from the main character, V.I. Lenin.

Prominent Soviet psychologist S.L. Rubinstein was undoubtedly right when he stated: "A thought, sharpened by feeling, penetrates deeper into its subject than an" objective ", indifferent, indifferent thought." In Loginov's book, it is the thought sharpened by feeling - dialectical thought - that dominates.

One of many examples of this. Here is how V. Loginov presents the reader with a socio-psychological portrait of the conspirators following the "rebellious" General Kornilov, who is ready to start a civil war in Russia. “The Kornilov officers went to Petrograd to pacify the cattle. As in the days of February, Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin, they were sure that they would "drive the herd into a stall." At Headquarters they were told that "this is just a walk." The aforementioned Prince Trubetskoy telegraphed from Headquarters to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Kornilov was assured of success, for in the lower ranks there was "indifference, which is ready to submit to the great blow of the whip." After listening to these conversations, the head of the British military mission in Russia, General Knox, wrote: “This people needs a whip! Dictatorship is just what you need! " He even provided the Kornilovites with armored cars with British crews, which went to St. Petersburg together with Krymov. But it turned out that the officers and even the British armored cars are powerless against the "cattle" ...

... Already on August 30, it became clear that the rebellion had suffered a complete defeat. Krymov shot himself on 31 August. Today they write about the mystery of this act. And even about the "Masonic intrigues", the good of the Crimea, like Kerensky, belonged to Russian Freemasonry. But there was hardly a "fatal secret" in this suicide. The fact that Kerensky insulted Krymov by accusing him of treason is indisputable. And according to the old code of officer honor - if you cannot punish the offender, then you must shoot yourself. This, apparently, was the whole incomprehensible for our time - "mystery".

So, the "cattle" - the huge working majority, led in St. Petersburg by the Bolsheviks, with whom the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Menshevik internationalists were in solidarity, scattered the idea of ​​a military dictatorship to dust. General Krymov shot himself "according to the code of officer honor," which was above all for him. Above all the people of Russia, who have suffered in a war that is senseless for them. I suffered in the centuries-old anticipation of a solution to the question of land. These and other similar thoughts come to mind when reading the above socio-psychological sketch of V. Loginov. And the image of the aggressive imperial West emerges: British armored cars and the Russophobic General Knox.

But, perhaps, the most powerful and valuable in V. Loginov's book is the introduction to the reader of the dialectics of Lenin's revolutionary thought, the disclosure of his personality as a people's leader, for whom a specific analysis of a specific situation determined actions in the interests of the working classes. As Lenin repeatedly said and wrote, there is nothing more primitive and ignorant than to present as an objective approach to assessing events and people a view from one side or the other, bypassing real-life contradictions. Guided by this kind of "objectivity", we can say that Lenin, on the one hand, was in favor of a peaceful transition from the bourgeois-democratic February revolution to the proletarian socialist, which is directly stated in the famous Lenin's "April Theses". On the other hand, he also demanded that the Bolshevik Central Committee take power immediately through an armed uprising.

In the opinion of the philistine, Comrade Lenin was very "inconsistent". There is no peace and only peaceful, without violence and blood. But he insisted on the immediate preparation of an armed uprising and threatened: "Delay is like death." This is how the modern philistine-philistine perceives Lenin's "extremes". As if in response to this, V. Loginov more than once reproduces Lenin's idea that a great revolution is an extreme aggravation of the contradiction between the interests of the exploiting and exploited classes, which inevitably (as evidenced by history) leads to civil war. The whole question is whether it is necessary and possible to avoid it, and if not, then how to reduce its inevitable sacrifices to a minimum.

If there is "even one chance in a hundred"

V. Loginov demonstrates in his book, not abstract, but Lenin's dialectical class approach (concrete analysis of a specific situation), which meets the interests of the people. This is how he presents to us, the readers, the situation that has developed after the defeat of the Kornilovism. Kerensky rushes about and bluffs. Having lost the support of the influential part of the generals and cadets, with their exit from the government, he loses ground, remains without support. Hastily forms a new government, headed by himself, Kerensky. Calls it the Directory and declares that it has full power.

This is a bluff of despair. Thus, Kerensky demanded the immediate dissolution of the "self-appointed committees." And what did he get in return? The CEC's categorical refusal. “It was obvious,” writes V. Loginov, “that the CEC was under pressure from the general mood that prevailed in the Soviets, as well as the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Mensheviks, whose number was constantly growing. These were clear signs that with the new revolutionary wave the possibility of a peaceful transfer of power to the Soviets arose. "

This is what Lenin thought about when N.K. Krupskaya told him about how the soldiers in the carriage talked about the massacre of officers and about the uprising. She was sure: Lenin was pensively silent because he was thinking how best to prepare the uprising. “Here,” says Loginov, “Nadezhda Konstantinovna is not accurate. He thought - and it seems incredible - about a compromise. "

Lenin writes an article "On Compromises." It states: "The usual idea of ​​the townsfolk about the Bolsheviks, supported by the press slandering the Bolsheviks, is that the Bolsheviks do not agree to any compromises, with anyone, never ... such an idea does not correspond to the truth." And then Loginov summarizes the logic of Lenin's judgments. We must be aware of the fact, argues Vladimir Ilyich, that a non-peaceful coming to power is associated with inevitable sacrifices. Moreover, it "means a difficult civil war, a long delay after this peaceful cultural development ..." Therefore, if there is even "one small chance" - "if even one chance in a hundred" of the possibility of a peaceful path - they must be used. "

"Only in the name of this peaceful development of the revolution," writes Lenin, "an opportunity extremely rare in history and extremely valuable, an opportunity extremely rare, only in the name of its Bolsheviks ... can and should, in my opinion, make such a compromise."

The essence of the compromise between the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was outlined by Lenin in his article "On Compromises", to which V. Loginov refers us. "A compromise is, on our part, our return to the pre-July demand: all power to the Soviets, a government of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks responsible to the Soviets." And also: “The compromise would be that the Bolsheviks, without claiming to participate in the government ... would refuse to immediately demand the transfer of power to the proletariat and the poorest peasants ... freedom of agitation and convocation of the Constituent Assembly without new delays, or even in a shorter time. "

But on September 2, the joint plenum of the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik CEC adopted a resolution in support of the Directory.

On September 3, in the postscript of his article, Lenin writes: “Yes, everything is clear that the days when the road to peaceful development became possible by chance are over. It remains to send these notes to the editorial office (to the editorial office of the newspaper Pravda, which was then published under the name Rabochaya Put. - Yu.B.) with a request to title them: "Belated Thoughts" ... sometimes, perhaps, it is interesting to familiarize yourself with belated thoughts ". Vladlen Loginov encourages us to do this.

The Bolsheviks "must take power immediately"

In September, a new revolutionary wave rose higher and higher. She was ready to cover the parties of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and, had the Bolsheviks delayed their armed seizure of power, would have overwhelmed their party too.

Complete confusion began among the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Menshevik proletarians en masse went over to the camp of the Bolsheviks, whose agitation reflected their interests and sentiments. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, rejecting an alliance with the bourgeoisie. The compromise Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik leadership was losing ground. It was no longer possible to think of any compromise with him: the time had come for revolutionary action. The workers took their owners and managers in wheelbarrows out of the gates of the factories and took over the management of production. The landlord's land was practically already seized by the peasants. The mass of soldiers looked forward to peace. There was a real danger that a spontaneous mass movement would overwhelm the country, sweeping away everything in its path. That it, this movement, will result in riots, “ie unconscious, unorganized, spontaneous, sometimes wild indignations ”(Lenin). And this, as V. Loginov writes, worried Lenin most of all.

And the Bolshevik Central Committee, in which the "moderate" core (Kamenev, Zinoviev, and others) was ready to hesitate and wait and even follow Kerensky's lead, concealed from the party Lenin's demand for an immediate uprising. On this V. Loginov focuses attention and, most importantly, on the fact that, alas, in Soviet times, in the school and university courses of history, he avoided and was silent. Namely, on the ultimatum that Lenin presented to the leadership of the Central Committee: either his demand for an immediate convocation of the Central Committee of the party to resolve the issue of preparing an uprising will be accepted, or he leaves the Central Committee and turns to the masses over his head.

Since Lenin was underground, he conveyed his statement about leaving the Central Committee through his proxies on September 29. And on October 1-2, he writes a leaflet "To the workers, peasants and soldiers." In it, he told the truth that was expected in factories and factories, in villages and villages, in the trenches of the First World War. “Comrades! .. Go all the way to the barracks, go to the Cossack units, go to the working people and clarify the truth to the people:

If the Soviets have power, then no later than October 25th ... a just peace will be offered to all the belligerent peoples. In Russia there will be a workers 'and peasants' government, it will immediately, without wasting a day, offer a just peace to all the belligerent peoples. Then the people will know who wants an unjust war. Then the people will decide in the Constituent Assembly.

If the Soviets have power, then the landowners' lands will immediately be declared the possession and property of the entire people. " The flyer was not published ...

On the first of October, Lenin wrote "A letter to the Central Committee, MK, PC and the members of the Soviets of St. Petersburg and Moscow to the Bolsheviks." In it, he proves that the Bolsheviks "must take power immediately" in order to save "the Russian revolution ... and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the war." “Otherwise,” Lenin warns the party, “the wave of real anarchy may become stronger than we are” (my emphasis - Yu.B.). V. Loginov has more than once emphasized this Leninist warning, which is extremely valuable, because up to now, noteworthy patriots have spared no pains in order to present the leader of the proletarian revolution as an anti-state. What would happen to the Russian state if a wave of wild anarchy (Russian revolt, senseless and merciless, according to Pushkin) covered the country? .. Loginov shows how right Lenin was in his warning about the danger of rampant anarchy, spontaneous and irrepressible. “It was especially susceptible,” writes V. Loginov, “... to the spontaneous and wild outbursts of the soldier mass, among which there were many elements that were largely declassified during the war years ... things, or just trample them in the dirt. In Bendery, Tiraspol, Ostrog, Rzhev, Torzhok, having smashed military warehouses, drunken soldiers together with hooligans smashed shops and shops. In Kharkov, the same drunken soldiers, incited by the Black Hundreds, rushed to the Jewish cemetery, intending to dig the gold allegedly hidden there from the graves.

The inability of the government to resolve the issue of peace, bread and land caused a storm of anger and hatred among the masses. " The ground for an anarchist storm was ready.

Reading Loginov's book about Lenin in 1917, one cannot but come to the conclusion: if it were not for the proletarian vanguard, which dragged the masses along with it into an organized revolutionary movement; if not for Lenin, who personified the mind, honor, conscience and the all-crushing will of the party, who did not give in to slander and lies (accusing him of spying for Germany), or the threat of taking his life if he was arrested (so to speak, “when trying to flight "), or before his isolation from the party by the efforts of the" moderate "Bolsheviks in the Central Committee, if only the Soviets seized full power, then (we emphasize this) the state catastrophe of Russia would be inevitable.

One reads with unflagging interest Vladlen Loginov's journalistically passionate exposition of the dramatic history of Lenin's struggle with the "moderates" in the Central Committee for the immediate preparation of an armed uprising. Lenin's "Letter to the Central Committee, MK, PC and the members of the Soviets of St. Petersburg and Moscow to the Bolsheviks" did reach the citizens of St. Petersburg and Muscovites and blew them up with indignation at the criminally wait-and-see attitude of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Co. Two facts are noteworthy in the history of Lenin's struggle against the "moderates", on which V. Loginov draws attention.

Returning to Petrograd illegally, contrary to the decision of the Central Committee, Lenin meets with only one member of the Central Committee - Stalin. He communicated to him for the Central Committee his demand for an immediate convocation of a meeting of its members to decide the question of an uprising. Only in this case is he ready to withdraw his statement of withdrawal from the Central Committee on September 29. And such a meeting (session) of the Central Committee took place on October 10. It made the historic decision to immediately prepare for an armed uprising. Kamenev and Zinoviev voted against, but left no effort to ensure that the decision made remained impracticable. On October 12, at the Northern Regional Congress of Soviets, they distribute to delegates copies of their letter to the Central Committee, in which, in principle, they do not deny the uprising, but write about the unpreparedness of the proletariat for it: whether the working class is now in just such a position (to take a decisive battle - Yu.B.). No, and a thousand times no !!! "

The letter from Kamenev and Zinoviev, in essence, proposed removing the question of preparing for an uprising from the agenda. In other words, to cancel the resolution of the Central Committee of October 10. The letter explicitly stated: "We have no right now to put the entire future on the line of an armed uprising ... we can and must now confine ourselves to a defensive position." In fact, the proposed parliamentary, opportunist way of the struggle for power: "Constituent Assembly plus the Soviets" - and no dictatorship of the proletariat. Even those who were preparing to take the lead in the uprising, doubts arose: is it worth the hurry? Is there a great risk of defeat?

Lenin could not allow the party to be demoralized at the decisive moment of the revolution. He insisted on convening an extended meeting of the Central Committee, which took place on October 16. After a stormy discussion of Lenin's "report on the last meeting of the Central Committee," the overwhelming majority adopted the resolution proposed by Lenin: preparation of an armed uprising ”. It seemed that all doubts had been overcome, the will of the majority was determined, the last point had been set.

However, on October 18, a note “Yu. Kamenev on the "performance". In it, the author, on his own and Zinoviev's name, sets out arguments against the uprising. "... Can you imagine a more treasonous, more strike-breaking act?" - Lenin writes indignantly about Kamenev's note.

The history of the confrontation between Kamenev and Zinoviev and the Leninist position has been presented by us in a very condensed form. V. Loginov pays great attention to it and does not skimp on the analysis of the Leninist Bolshevik strategy and tactics of the Russian revolution and the Zinoviev-Kamenev (opportunist) strategy and tactics. In addition to the ideological and political aspects of the two incompatible positions, V. Loginov also clearly looms a moral aspect. Kamenev and Zinoviev placed themselves above the will of the party. Their "treasonous" act was not an accident. Opportunism is always immoral as a sophisticated betrayal of the working class and all working people, covered by Marxist and even ultra-revolutionary (Trotskyism) phrases.

History lessons not to be forgotten

The deeper you delve into the content and logic of Vladlen Loginov's book, the more relentlessly you are haunted by the thought that the line of political behavior of the main characters of the history of the CPSU (b) of the 20-30s of the XX century was largely determined by their behavior in 1917 and, most importantly, their attitude towards Lenin and his position.

Stalin was the only member of the Central Committee who proposed then, in mid-September, to send out Lenin's letters (we will talk about them later) to the most important party organizations to discuss them. But at a meeting of the Central Committee, the question was put to a vote: who is in favor of keeping only one copy of the letters. For - 6, against - 4, abstained - 6. The protocol says: “Comrade. Kamenev makes a proposal to adopt the following resolution (and it was adopted. - Yu.B.): The Central Committee, having discussed the letters of Lenin, rejects the practical proposals contained in them, calls on all organizations to follow only the instructions of the Central Committee and reaffirms that the Central Committee is currently finding any speeches on the street are inadmissible ”. Comments are superfluous.

Trotsky undoubtedly played an important role in the October Revolution of 1917, but on the way to it, in July, in the most dramatic period of rampant reaction - the defeat of the editorial board and printing house of Pravda, the order of the Provisional Government to arrest Lenin - he demonstratively goes to prison. So to speak, he voluntarily surrenders himself into the hands of "justice" (they say, since they announced the arrest of Lenin, then take me too). It was a deliberate gesture that made it possible to beautifully get away from the impending events threatening the party. That was posturing with an obvious pretense to put himself on a par with Lenin, or even higher. This megalomania will lead Trotsky to an exposition of the history of October according to the formula "I and Lenin."

Kamenev and Trotsky did not behave like Bolsheviks at the Democratic Conference, which was held in Petrograd in mid-September. It was initiated by Kerensky in order to gain time to hold on to power and to create the appearance of a "democratic" solution to pressing issues. The meeting turned into another talking shop. Here is how V. Loginov presented the participation of the Bolsheviks in this talking shop: “Kamenev spoke on behalf of the Bolsheviks. He called on the representatives of Russian democracy sitting in the hall — theirs, not the Soviets — to take power into their own hands, to create a democratic coalition government and a body to which it will be accountable. They applauded him. The next day, the 15th, Trotsky made a speech to the delegates from the Soviets. Unlike Kamenev, he talked about the transfer of power to the Soviets, but just like Kamenev, he focused on the peaceful development of events. They applauded him too. "

And now, like a bolt from the blue, - Lenin's letters to the Central Committee, the names of which speak for themselves: "The Bolsheviks must take power", "Marxism and uprising." The peaceful mood of Kamenev, Trotsky and others like them in the Central Committee of the party explodes with Lenin's formulation of the question of power: “The question is that our party now at the Democratic Conference actually has its own congress, and this congress must decide (whether it wants or does not want, but must) the fate of the revolution. The question is to make the task clear for the party: on the turn of the day to put up an armed uprising in St. Petersburg and Moscow (with the region), the conquest of power, the overthrow of the government. " And as a final optimistic chord: "We have a sure victory behind us, for the people are already very close to despair, and we are giving the whole people the right way out."

V. Loginov reproduces the reaction to Lenin's letters of "moderate" Central Committee members, accurately conveyed by Bukharin in his memoirs in 1921: "We all gasped!" As already mentioned, only Stalin proposed to discuss Lenin's letters in the party, but he was in the minority. The "moderate" majority rejected Lenin's proposals.

It is far from immediately possible to see the path from resistance to Lenin's course towards an armed uprising in 1917 to rejection of the Stalinist policy of building socialism in the USSR, without waiting for the proletarian revolution in Europe. But this path existed and was traversed by people who were part of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, but secretly gravitated towards opportunism (Kamenev, Zinoviev, and not only). Vladlen Loginov's book helps to see this path, to see where inconsistent Bolshevism, or rather non-Bolshevism, leads.

The author of the book, in our opinion, skillfully highlighted what made Lenin the leader of the Bolshevik Party, the people's leader. Lenin was not only because of his genius in the development of Marxism in the era of imperialism. This is so obvious that it does not require proof.

V. Loginov convincingly shows how Lenin steadfastly followed the postulate he himself formulated: Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to action.

People's leader

Lenin was a Bolshevik and people's leader - and this can be seen in the entire book of Vladlen Loginov - due to his, Lenin's, organic connection with the lower classes. He, in the description of Loginov, is no less often than in the party environment (and maybe more often), is among the workers, peasants and soldiers. They are imbued with the social mood that is dominant at the moment. The book, as they say, clearly shows how Lenin is infected and charged with the social and revolutionary creativity of the masses: "Only he will win and retain power, who believes in the people, who plunges into the spring of living folk creativity."

What V. Loginov succeeded in (and this is a rare success) is to accurately convey Lenin's thought, and adhering to the Leninist journalistic style, on the main issue for the people - about the state and the new structure of state power in the form of Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. Lenin considered the Soviets to be a work of genius of folk art. He contrasted them with the old, exploitative type of state power. Exposing the class nature of the old state, Loginov skillfully uses the means of Lenin's political sarcasm: “The class essence of the state has always been carefully masked by reasoning about state interests - higher than the interests of individual classes, social groups, corporations and clans. In Russia in 1917, when the old state was falling apart literally before our eyes, this veil of statehood was exploited in full. And the land cannot be given to the peasants, because this is contrary to the interests of the state. And the workers need to tighten their belts, and not demand higher wages - in the name of state interests. " As it is in Lenin's way and to this day it is said.

But, perhaps, V. Loginov was most successful in conveying the moral content of Lenin's thought, to which the most venerable researchers of the theoretical heritage of V.I. Little or little attention was paid to Lenin. Namely, the folk ethics embodied in Lenin's word made him the people's leader. First of all, this was expressed in Lenin's propaganda of the idea of ​​justice, for which the Russian people fought in all centuries. For Lenin, justice is a category both social and moral. This was brilliantly shown by V. Loginov in his book. “For his adherence to this idea,” he writes, “Lenin got it back at the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, when he defended the need to transfer land to the peasants. Then opponents accused him of abandoning the position of economic materialism, engaged in "correcting some historical injustice" and generally taking an "ethical point of view."

And again, in 1917, the "priests of the Marxist parish" again accused him of using such "empty" and "empty" concepts as "justice ".

In Lenin - and this permeates the entire content of Loginov's book - the class interests of the workers and peasants, of the vast working majority, are inseparable from the moral norms and ideals that the people have suffered through - the ideals of justice, honor, dignity, and duty to the Motherland. The following lines of Loginov's book are consonant with this Leninist, morally colored, class approach: “In all centuries it (the class struggle - Yu.B.) was a completely conscious struggle for justice. And not because, as we write today, that the rich were envied. But because they considered their wealth unrighteous. Acquired at the expense of someone else's labor. And they were right. Political economy has proven that this view is a scientific fact. "

In Vladlen Loginov's book, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin proved this to the workers, peasants and honest intelligentsia, not knowing fatigue. And he proved that there is no other way to overcome injustice in Russia, as soon as its breakthrough to socialism. He proved, guided by the rule he himself established: "Maximum of Marxism = maximum of popularity and simplicity."

“We have convinced Russia,” Lenin said. This meant, first of all, that the view of Russian reality from the class point of view, propagandized by him among the masses, entered the consciousness of not only proletarians, but also peasants and became their approach to assessing what was happening. V. Loginov illustrates this well, referring to the marked psychological sketch of the American journalist John Reed. In his book "Ten Days that Shook the World", which Lenin "would like to see ... translated into all languages", there is a scene of a dispute between a student, either a Socialist-Revolutionary, or a Menshevik, with two soldiers from the peasants. Jumping on one of them, the student spoke with arrogant impetuosity:

“… Do you know that Lenin was sent from Germany in a sealed carriage? Do you know that Lenin receives money from the Germans? "

“Well, I don’t know that,” the soldier answered stubbornly. “But it seems to me that Lenin is saying exactly what I would like to hear. And all the common people say so. After all, there are two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat ... "

“And, - the soldier concludes, - whoever is not for one class, that means, for another ...”

"And since the authority of the workers was recognized by both the soldiers and the peasants," concludes V. Loginov, "they all begin to identify themselves as a" proletariat "opposing the bourgeoisie." On our own behalf, we add: they all become Leninists in relation to the bourgeois power and the power of the workers and peasants - the Soviet. Wasn't this the recognition of Lenin as the people's leader ?!

At one time, the famous Soviet screenwriter Kapler said about the great Russian Soviet actor Shchukin, the first creator of the artistic image of Lenin: "He did not just play the role of Lenin, he was him." One can say about the author of the book "Unknown Lenin": he not only wrote beautifully about Lenin in 1917, he lived with him all that year.

Yuri Belov

Lenin (real name Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich - an outstanding Russian political and statesman; founder of the communist party and the Soviet state; one of the leaders of the international communist movement, was born on 10 (22 in a new style) April 1870, in the city of Simbirsk - died on January 21, 1924.

Lenin was the greatest revolutionary of the twentieth century, a man with a strong pragmatic mind, great determination and will. In some political spheres, he was able to achieve results that were fateful for the entire history of the century: the formation of the Russian Marxist party, the formation of the international communist movement, the creation of the world's first socialist state

Mountains of books have been written about Lenin, but to this day he remains an incomparably greater mystery than the other political leader of Russia in the twentieth century. For many decades, he served as an icon for millions, and still remains so for many.

Lenin's generation entered public life in a period of disappointment and disappointment. After the assassination of Alexander II (March 1, 1881), the liberal reform activities of the authorities turned into a deep rollback to the foundations of the autocratic regime. But trampled hopes rarely disappear without a trace. In strong characters, they only strengthen the thirst for struggle. Many then went into opposition, into revolution, into terror.

From the very beginning, Lenin stood out for his decisiveness, self-confidence, firmness and harshness in polemics - all that, as a rule, lacked the majority of revolutionary intellectuals. Lenin formulated his credo for life: Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we will turn Russia over "for the sake of democracy and socialism. It was a struggle, with all forces and means, a struggle to the end, without doubts and hesitation, without retreats and compromises.

The tsar left Petrograd on February 22, 1917, and on the 23rd, riots broke out there: rallies and demonstrations, which on February 24 turned into strikes, taking on an even larger scale (they became more crowded, clashes arose both with the police and the troops supporting it.

On February 25, the movement began to develop into a general political strike, which practically paralyzed the life of the city. Red flags and banners were hoisted over the strikers and demonstrators with the slogans "Down with the Tsar!", "Bread, Peace, Freedom!", "Long Live the Republic!" This is how political groups and organizations declared themselves.

Back on February 25, on the initiative of some members of the "Union of Workers' Cooperatives of Petrograd", the Social Democratic faction IV The State Duma, Working Group of the Central Military Industrial. Defense direction, the idea of ​​creating a Council of Workers' Deputies arose. However, this idea was realized only on the 27th, when the leaders of the TsVPK working group, who had just been freed from the "crosses", came to the Tauride Palace, and together with a group of Duma Social Democrats and representatives of the left intelligentsia announced the creation of the Provisional Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

On February 27, almost simultaneously with the creation of the Petrograd Soviet, the leaders of the Progressive Bloc of the IV State Duma formed the so-called Provisional Committee, whose head M. Rodzianko had already made attempts to enter into negotiations with Nicholas II in order to persuade him to make constitutional concessions.

On March 2, Guchkov and Shulgin arrived in Pskov, where Nicholas II was staying. In the presence of the Minister of the Court B. Fredericks, the head of the military chancellery General K. Naryshkin, generals Ruzsky and Danilov, they presented to the tsar their version of abdication (in favor of Alexei). In response, Nicholas II announced that he had decided to abdicate in favor of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich.

By the time of the abdication of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government was formed in Petrograd. The program and composition of the government were largely the result of an agreement between the Duma Provisional Committee and the Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

On March 3, Mikhail abdicates the throne until the final decision on the state structure of the Russian Constituent Assembly, which was to be convened by the Provisional Government.

When the first information about what had happened in Russia reached Zurich, where Lenin had lived since the end of January 1916, Lenin did not believe them. But then he began to actively work on his political program. In Petrograd, local Bolshevik leaders waged disputes about the intricacies of political formulations, about the development of party tactics in relation to the Provisional Government, and Lenin had already decided everything. He has already formed the foundations of the political line that the Bolshevik Party will pursue under his leadership.

On April 3, Lenin arrived in Petrograd through enemy German territory in a sealed carriage. Immediately upon his arrival, he published his famous April Theses. They weren't a surprise. As early as March 13, at a meeting of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee and the Executive Committee of the Central Committee, Lenin's telegram was read out, which prescribed the tactics of complete distrust of the Provisional Government and a categorical ban on rapprochement with other parties. The theses did not contain a call for violent, armed actions in the struggle for power. They were a program of struggle for the peaceful "development" of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution.

With the arrival of Lenin, the party felt and understood: there was an indisputable leader, a leader. Lenin's complete "immersion" in the idea of ​​revolution, the power of his extraordinary energy, self-confidence, almost complete absence internal hesitation, intransigence towards political opponents, the ability to discern his weaknesses and use them in the struggle, bringing it to the end - all this raised Lenin high above other competitors as a political leader.

At the First Congress of Soviets in June 1917, where only 10% of the delegates stood behind Lenin, he declared: "There is such a party that is ready to take power - this is the Bolshevik party." By this time, Lenin's arithmetic of the revolution boiled down to the fact that the soldiers are the same peasants; as soldiers they want peace, as peasants they want land. But besides the promises of peace, land and free bread taken from the rich, a political slogan was needed, and Lenin advanced a simple and accessible slogan: "All power to the Soviets!" He does not get tired of explaining at rallies and meetings the content of the April Theses and the slogan calling to stand under the banner of the Soviets.

Back in December 1916 - January 1917, the tsarist government, in agreement with its Entente allies, decided to launch an offensive on the Russian-German front in the spring of 1917. Combined with the actions of the Allied forces in the West, it should and most likely would have led to the defeat of Germany. Nicholas II hoped that a successful offensive, victory in the war, raising a wave of patriotism, would improve the situation in the country. The February explosion dashed these hopes. However, as events developed, the idea of ​​an offensive, capable of realizing not only strategic, but also political calculations, came to life again, this time in the mouths of representatives of the new government. V. Maklakov, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadets, formulated plans related to the offensive: “If we really succeed in attacking ... and waging the war as seriously as we fought it before, then the full recovery of Russia will quickly come. Then our power will be justified and strengthened ... ”.

According to the plan developed by the Headquarters, the offensive will be scheduled for July. The main blow must be delivered on the Southwestern Front (comm. - General A. Gutor), supported by the Northern, Western and Romanian fronts.

VI Lenin believed that with all possible outcomes of the offensive, it would mean "strengthening the basic positions of the counter-revolution." Naturally, the Bolsheviks were against the offensive. This meant the development of a political struggle to prevent it, up to fraternization with the enemy. Under the influence of Bolshevik propaganda and agitation, under their slogans, anarchist sentiments appeared in some military units both during the preparation period and during the offensive itself. The political opponents of the Bolsheviks directly accused them of a treacherous stab in the back.

The entire grandiose plan of the offensive turned into a real disaster. A disorderly, sometimes panicky retreat of the Russian troops began. This coincided with the departure of the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison (1st machine gun regiment, 1st reserve infantry regiment), sailors and other military units who arrived from Kronstadt to the streets of the city from July 3rd to 5th. Demands were heard to eliminate the Provisional Government and to transfer all power into the hands of the Soviets. Petrograd was shocked. Until now, the source of such a speech is not completely clear, which was suppressed almost immediately. After the investigation of this case by the Petrograd Court of Justice, headed by N. Karinsky and investigator P. Aleksandrov, it was decided that this uprising was provoked by the Bolshevik leadership, which acted to undermine the military efforts of Russia in the interests of Germany and its allies. In accordance with this decision of the investigating commission, the interrogation of a wide range of persons, one way or another involved in the events, began. This investigation was never completed: the Bolshevik coup put an end to it.

Because of the above events, Lenin urgently returned to Petrograd, interrupting his short rest in Neivola. G. Zinoviev wrote in his memoirs; for Lenin, "the question of the need for the seizure of power by the proletariat was resolved from the first moment of the current revolution, and it was only a matter of choosing the right moment." Zinoviev further asserted: “In the days of July, our entire Central Committee was against the immediate seizure of power. Lenin thought the same. But when on July 3 a wave of popular indignation rose high, Comrade Lenin was roused. And here, probably in the buffet of the Tauride Palace, a small conference took place, at which Trotsky, Lenin and I were present. And Lenin, laughing, told us, shouldn't we try now? But then he added: no, now it is impossible to take power, now it will not work, because the front-line soldiers are not all ours ... ".

Nevertheless, to some extent, the 1st test took place. The Bolsheviks actually supported the action, including the armed one, of the soldiers and workers. Then Lenin argued that evading our support would be a direct betrayal of the proletariat, and the Bolsheviks had to go and went to the masses in order to give the uprising a supposedly peaceful, organized character, to avoid provocation.

Repression fell upon the Bolsheviks. Warrants were issued for the arrest of Lenin and some other Bolshevik leaders, but no one came to arrest the leader. IN different places demonstration cities were attacked and fired upon. Meanwhile, the collection of data continued, incriminating some of the Bolshevik leaders (and primarily Lenin) in financial ties with the Germans. Documents published by Germany after World War II provide an indirect basis for the conclusion that certain German subsidies fell into the Bolshevik treasury. But if this is so, then this does not mean at all that Lenin and other Bolsheviks were German agents and carried out their instructions. Lenin was a personality of such a scale that could hardly be compatible with activities on someone's assignment.

In less than two months, it seemed that the already defeated, disgraced Bolshevism would again attract the sympathy and support of those masses who rejected it in July.

After these events, Lenin was secretly transported to Finland. Lenin reoriented the political course of the Bolsheviks. What was proclaimed in the April Theses — the struggle for power through a political struggle against the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries within the Soviets — was in fact rejected. Now Lenin came to the conclusion that "these Soviets have failed, suffered a complete collapse," that the Soviets are now powerless and helpless in the face of the victorious and triumphant counter-revolution. From this categorical statement, Lenin took a logical step further. He stated that there is no more dual power, that the power of the Provisional Government is the power of the "military clique of Cavaignacs (Kerensky, some generals, officers, etc.)" in hand". But if the power actually ended up in the hands of the military clique, only hiding behind a screen of the government, then Lenin's logic dictated the final conclusion: “… no constitutional and republican illusions, no more illusions of a peaceful way…. Only a clear awareness of the situation, endurance, steadfastness of the workers' vanguard, preparation of forces for an armed uprising. " Frequent changes in the main slogans, which no serious political party could afford, became Lenin's usual tool in the struggle for power.

The purpose of the armed uprising is the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, to implement the program of the Bolshevik Party.

As a result, Lenin intended to change the methods of the party's activity: "without abandoning legality ... everywhere and in everything to found illegal organizations and cells ... to combine legal work with illegal". This means that by working openly, the party had to conceal its preparation to attack at the right, favorable moment.

Lenin's political turn had huge, far-reaching ideas: he accelerated the movement of the Bolshevik Party, and therefore those radical forces from the lower ranks that followed it, to the left, even to the extreme left political front of the country. At the end of July, the VI Congress of the Bolshevik Party was actually legally held, at which new Leninist principles were adopted, although they did not betray them a concrete, practical content. An important organizational moment in the work of the congress was the admission to the party of a group of "Mezhraiontsy" headed by L. Trotsky. (His long struggle against Lenin and Bolshevism was well known, but now, in these hot revolutionary days, they found ways of reconciling with each other). The unification of these two people, possessing tremendous will and fully mastering the art of political struggle in the revolution, gave Bolshevism such a powerful impetus, which in many respects conditioned the victory of October ...

At the end of August 1917, the monarchist General Kornilov moved troops to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviks also opposed him. Thus, they rehabilitated themselves in the eyes of the socialist parties. Subsequently, Kerensky, who saved Lenin from trial and arrest, because he believed that the German money of the Bolsheviks could be a stain on the whole of democracy, wrote about the Bolshevik leader: "Without the Kornilov revolt there would be no Lenin." From the beginning of the autumn of 1917, the revolution more and more degenerated into a revolt. The Provisional Government, headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary Kerensky, was transformed from a capitalist into a socialist government, shifting all the time to the left, but there was no time to catch up with Lenin.

Being in the "underground" in all I of the Kornilov putsch, when on the main question (the idea of ​​coalition power) the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries hesitated, Lenin showed a cautious readiness to compromise with them. As explained in his article "On a Compromise", this compromise could consist in the fact that the Bolsheviks would abandon their demand for an immediate transfer of power to the proletariat and the poorest peasants, while the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries would agree to form a government entirely and fully accountable to the Soviets.

Lenin believed that the creation of such a government should mean a significant step in the further democratization of the country, such a democratization that would allow the Bolsheviks to campaign freely for their views. This was a fairly accurate calculation: the Bolshevization of the lower ranks was growing rapidly, and, having received unlimited freedom of agitation, the Bolsheviks with great reason can count on pushing back and even ousting their socialist opponents from the right, playing with revolutionary, populist slogans should have given the Bolsheviks advantages.

For about another 10-12 first days of September, Lenin in his articles continued to vary his thought with a politically beneficial union of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The majority in the Central Committee accepted this course well and was ready to carry it out.

The Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, guided by Leninist articles, supported the convening of the Democratic Conference, designed to create a new coalition government - the government represented by the socialist parties. The Democratic Conference opened on September 14 at the Alexandria Theater. It seemed to everyone that this meeting gave a chance for the reorganization of power, for its shift to the left, by forming a new coalition - democratic, homogeneously socialist. And this chance was missed due to internal disagreements in the revolutionary democratic environment.

This meeting confirmed Lenin's worst assumptions, and in mid-September Lenin's position changed dramatically. Not a trace remained of the recent discussion about the usefulness of seeking an agreement with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries within the Soviets. Now he simply stigmatized the possibility of all parliamentary negotiations and agreements with incredible energy.

Lenin demanded that the Bolsheviks decisively put an end to all illusions about the Democratic Assembly and Parliament, because they do not want to create a government capable of leading the country out of the impasse, sending the threatening catastrophe through radical transformations, satisfying the vital interests of the working people below - workers, peasants, soldiers. He urged not to waste time on empty words, but to concentrate efforts on work among the workers and soldiers, since they are the source of salvation for the revolution. In the 20th of September, Lenin generally came to the conclusion that the participation of the Bolsheviks in the Democratic Assembly was a mistake. Any suggestion of the possibility of some kind of compromise and agreement with another party was unconditionally rejected.

And Lenin concluded: the party must begin preparations for a military uprising.

Lenin's sharp turn did not immediately find understanding and support in the Bolshevik leadership. The hopes and calculations connected with the Democratic Assembly and the forthcoming II Congress of Soviets continued to live on.

Lenin's letters about the need for an uprising sometimes remained unanswered at all, so Lenin faced another struggle against at least part of the leadership of his own party, approximately the same as it was in April, when he “pushed through” his April Theses. And he did not hesitate to start this fight.

At the end of September, Lenin announced the possibility of his resignation from the Central Committee while retaining the right to agitate for his point of view in the lower ranks of the party and at the party congress. The harshness and categorical nature of his position were determined by the conviction that cooperation in the Pre-parliament and the expectation of a congress of Soviets was destructive for the revolution.

In late September - early October, Lenin returned illegally to Petrograd. He knew the value of his personal presence and was not mistaken this time either. On October 7, the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks published a message about the withdrawal from the Pre-Parliament. This was Lenin's first success, but not yet final.

On October 10, illegally gathered members of the Bolshevik Central Committee for the first time (after July) with the participation of V.I.Lenin discussed the question of an armed uprising.

Lenin argued his position by the fact that Europe was about to be resolved by revolution; The Entente and the Germans are ready to conspire to stifle the revolution in Russia; the people are in favor of the Bolsheviks; a new Kornilovism is being prepared; Kerensky decided to surrender Petrograd to the Germans. Despite the fact that Lenin's arguments were, to put it mildly, unconvincing, he was right in the main thing - the power was lying on the pavement, no one wanted to defend the Provisional Government. Moreover, Lenin understood that it was imperative to overthrow the Provisional Government before the Second Congress of Soviets in order to present it with a fact. Only then is it possible to establish a purely Bolshevik power, a Leninist one.

Lenin bluntly rejected all arguments, pointing out that absenteeism and indifference are a consequence of the weariness of a part of the masses from mere words, that the majority is firmly following the Bolsheviks, and that the Bolsheviks can and should take the initiative from the international point of view. He concluded that the political matter was ripe for the transfer of power to the Soviets, and the facts revived and intensified the counter-revolutionary forces, forced them to take decisive action.

The Central Committee adopted Lenin's resolution, which stated that the meeting “calls upon all organs and all workers and soldiers to comprehensively and intensified preparations for an armed uprising, to support the center created for this by the Central Committee, and expressed full confidence that the Central Committee and the Soviets would promptly indicate a favorable moment and expedient ways offensive ".

Lenin's political line won, just as it won on other sharp turns between February and October.

From October 20 to October 24, the Central Committee actually did not allow Lenin to enter Smolny, he appeared there without prior agreement on the evening of 24. From that moment on, Lenin's energy, will, and efficiency become truly titanic. His articles ("The Bolsheviks Must Take Power", "Marxism and Uprising," "Advice of an Outsider"), written in this hot time, are a direct tactical guide to seizing power.

In his Letter to the District Committees, with the help of which he wanted to put pressure on the still vacillating Central Committee through the District Committees, Lenin insists on decisive action: “The government is wavering. We must finish him off at all costs! Delay in performing is like death. " The demonstration was successful, power was in the hands of the Bolsheviks, and the capture of the Winter Palace presented no difficulties.

On the morning of October 25, Lenin wrote an appeal "To the Citizens of Russia": "The Provisional Government has been deposed," despite the fact that the Provisional Government was still in session in the Winter Palace. Lenin writes decrees on peace, on land (borrowing the program of the Socialist-Revolutionaries), on the formation of a Provisional Workers 'and Peasants' Government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK), at the same time an order to the Military Revolutionary Committee: "The Provisional Government must be arrested this night, otherwise the Military Revolutionary Committee will be shot." A new era has begun - “a miracle happened. "If there were no Lenin, there would be no October" (Trotsky).